September 2013 review Tom Dixon Dixonary

Tom Dixon

Text by Tom Dixon; edited by by Camilla Belton and Robert Violette
Violette Editions (June 2013)
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Reviewer: Book Board member Ellen Lupton (Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Maryland Institute College of Art)

Tom Dixon: Dixonary, text by Tom Dixon, 2013 (Violette Editions)

How do designers represent themselves in the medium of the book? Tom Dixon has released a fascinating self-portrait constructed in the medium of print. Crafted as a marvelous physical object that unfolds over time, Dixonary takes its inspiration from the designer’s own slide lectures, which pair an object or image from the world of pop culture and technology with a piece created by Dixon. The book introduces each work with a spare page of text and an image suggesting a cultural reference (pin-up girls, machine parts, genre paintings). The reader turns the page of text to reveal a Dixon object; these range from one-of-a-kind chairs bent from steel bars to sleek totemic stools and lamps. The text pages have been printed on a soft, warm stock that contrasts with the hard surface of the photographic plates, and they have been cut short at the fore edge to modulate the experience of flipping through the book.

Left: Dixon solder kit, manufactured by William Dixon Inc., reproduced as line drawings by Saara Hopea Untracht, in Metal Techniques for Craftsmen:
A basic manual for craftsmen on the methods of forming and decorating metals, 1968, by Oppi Untracht. Right: Poodle Chair 1987 Rubber inner tube, upholstery, brass. Manufacturer: Tom Dixon Prototype. From Tom Dixon: Dixonary (Violette Editions)

Dixon is a hands-on maker who began creating furniture and objects in Britain in the late 1970s, where his raw, welded pieces attracted an immediate association with punk. Dixon claims to have never really been a punk, but he did draw energy from the movement’s rough-and-ready, do-it-yourself rebelliousness. He went on to become an influential designer with a diverse output, from art furniture to manufactured pieces. Dixonary is alive with the designer’s own voice as well as the culture that inspires him.

Left: Traffic signs. Right: Tower Salt & Pepper Grinders, 2013. Turned beech with ceramic mechanism. Manufacturer: Eclectic by Tom Dixon Industrial production. From Tom Dixon: Dixonary (Violette Editions)

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